Mussoorie buildings unsafe

Tourists and residents in the hill resorts of Mussoorie and Nainital in Uttarakhand, which fall under the high seismic zones, may be living on the edge.

A new survey on Mussoorie, a major tourist attraction in the North, conducted by the state government’s department of disaster management has revealed that 18 per cent of the buildings, including hotels and schools, face the risk of “high probability” damage of Grade V and IV in case of a big earthquake. Significantly, most of these buildings were constructed in the pre-1950 era and even some during the 19th century.

Under the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98), grade IV and V are important for vulnerability and risk assessment as these have the potential of threatening lives of the occupants. Since Mussoorie falls in zone IV of seismic risk map of India, the scale of damage during an earthquake might be very high.

In all, 3,344 buildings spread over 11 residential wards were surveyed in Mussoorie with the department using satellite imagery for mapping the infrastructure in global information system (GIS) environment.

Of the surveyed structures, the oldest was constructed in 1,836 and 290 were observed to have been constructed in pre-1900 period. A nine-storey building was observed in ward no 8 of the Himalayan town and as many as 30 buildings were more than five-storied. Most of the buildings can be classified as non-engineered structures, the survey said.

Analysts also assessed magnitude of the expected direct economic losses in case of a damage. The replacement cost of these buildings comes out to be Rs 143.85 crore. And in a seismic event, the likely damage to these structures would be Rs 92 crore. Total direct or indirect economic losses are estimated to be Rs 235.85 crore.

“Our other survey on Nainital is also in final stages. The initial reports in the Nainital survey are also similar to that of Mussoorie’s. This is periodic exercise which our department undertakes from time to time,” said Piyoosh Rautela, Executive Director of the Disaster Management and Mitigation Centre (DMMC), a unit of the disaster management department.